Think of the children: Marlene Perrotte are taking up the good fight against video games where Jack Thompson left off. She and other parents in Albuquerque are fighting an educational math videogame which they claim is making children victims of "addiction" and exposing them to "violent" content like jetpacks. (Source: KOAT-TV)

"What they recall is not the prime number ... but rather getting through to the enemy" -- concerned parent

Video
games have their perpetual enemies -- poor adaptation, perverts,
and slipping
release deadlines. However, perhaps the most insidious foe
of video games is the perennial cry to ban games because they are too
"violent", too "addictive", or feature too
many "adult themes."

Albuquerque, New Mexico fell
victim to this familiar foe when it tried
to educate children using a mathematics-themed video game.
The local schools received a Department of Defense grant to deploy
Tabula Digital's DimensionM to local schools, to
help bump up children's math test scores.

Tabula Digital
describes the game as having "all the action and adventure of
commercial-quality video games while practicing and reinforcing the
skills they need to succeed in math." One middle school
teacher called it "a 21st century flash card... They can use
jetpacks and at the same time they have to know what the associative
property is."

Not all local parents are as impressed,
though. Some are leading a crusade to see the game banned.
KOAT-TV, a local TV station, has been covering the bizarre protests.
One parent, Marlene Perrotte, comments, "We are feeding the
addiction of these children to video games. They were all
excited, and they were excited because of the violence -'I'm getting
ahead, I'm getting ahead, I'm getting ahead.'"

In a furor
that would make even
Jack Thompson proud, she raves, "What they recall is
not the prime number ... but rather getting through to the
enemy!"

Thus far, Albuquerque schools have no plans to
drop the educational title amid the apparent outrage of a handful of
parents. DimensionM will continue to keep kids
addicted -- to learning mathematics. And that might just be a
pretty great thing, considering math competency worldwide has
been slipping.

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I looked up this game DimensionM ( http://www.dimensionm.com ) in what capacity I have, and I can't find any examples of it being violent. Based off of what I read, it's an exploration game (similar to such oldies (but goodies) as Myst) in which you use mathematics to solve puzzles or gain access.

So rather than the usual "video games are violent" mantra, this woman is simply unhappy that they are playing a game to begin with. That's well within her own right, but she isn't exactly putting up a compelling argument detailing how this game does not help. In fact, she's simply being skeptical. I guess in that case, it'll definitely be interesting to see the results of testing before and after use with the game.

I just think of what it'd be like if I had nifty games such as this when I was younger. I do recall playing Number Munchers (and Word Munchers) on my old MS-DOS 486DX PC though :).

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